1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to trayed bottle unloading machines of the type adapted to reorient bottles from mass collection within storage trays into a single row of bottles for further individual bottle processing primarily in the pharmaceutical industry.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a novel sloped bottle surface where bottles are gravity fed downward into the top receiving edge of a parallel sloped large diameter multi-pocketed rotatable index wheel, and sequentially: a, tangentially discharged from bottom exit edge of said index wheel in a single file row, b, corrected to a vertical axis in a novel passive helix track, and, c, exited from the apparatus.
The present invention feeds bottles on a first-in/first-out basis eliminating stagnantly positioned bottles, which is of particular importance in the pharmaceutical industry.
The present invention has essentially one moving part (index wheel), is economical, requires minimal floor space, and is inherently safe for high-speed glass bottle handling.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The novel invention of the present method and apparatus [apparatus] includes four intrinsic and cooperatively functional elements: a, a sloped gravity influenced bottle feed slide having a top loading end and a bottom open end, b, a multi-pocketed large diameter index wheel, in a plane parallel with said slide, having a tilted bottle capturing top edge operationally abutting the bottom open end of the bottle feed slide and a bottle discharge bottom edge, c, a tangential exit track in a plane parallel with said index wheel to align bottles in a single file row, with an end to receive bottles from said index wheel bottom edge, and a discharge second end, d, a passive helix track having a tilted first end guide, and a vertical axis bottle discharge second end.
Prior art includes gravity influenced bottle feeding slides including Krooss U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,039 entitled xe2x80x9cBottle Alignment Apparatus,xe2x80x9d and Meindl U.S. Pat. No. 5,147,023 entitled xe2x80x9cMethod and Apparatus for Converting a Multi-Row Container into a Single Row Stream.xe2x80x9d
Neither of these patents, however, contains all of the elements of and arranged in accordance with the present novel invention. Index wheels and tangential guides have customarily been used to convey bottles including Kouda U.S. Pat. No. 5,695,041 entitled xe2x80x9cMethod to Separate Articles . . . , xe2x80x9d Omega Design Corporation, U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,447 entitled xe2x80x9cHigh Rate Transfer Wheel for Orienting Unscrambled Container,xe2x80x9d and Hurst U.S. Pat. No. 6,089,001 entitled xe2x80x9cInclined Tray Bottle Traying Machine,xe2x80x9d however, these patents do not include all of the elements intrinsic to the present novel invention.
Although many bottle tilting guides and tilting ramps are available, the helix track of the present invention is a novel apparatus element consisting of a solid rectangular block of a low friction plastic with a helix track therein to receive tilted bottles on a first end, and exit vertical axis corrected bottles at a second discharge end.
It is a principle object of the present invention to collect tilted bottles from a supply of tilted bottles at the lower end of a sloped surface into a bottle indexing wheel and sequentially reorient said tilted bottles into a single-file row of bottles corrected to a vertical axis.
It is a principle object of the present invention to gravitationally insert tilted bottles from a supply of bottles at the lower end of a sloped surface into a tilted multi-pocketed index wheel, and sequentially: a, transport individually pocketed bottles to an index wheel exit position, b, exit bottles from said index wheel, c, align bottles in a single-file row of tilted bottles, and, d, correct bottles to a vertical axis by means of a passive helix track.
It is a principle object of the present invention to provide a large diameter multi-pocketed bottle index wheel to provide high production rates at minimal index wheel revolution speeds to protect bottles from excess shock and minimize noise.
It is a principle object of the present invention to provide a [slippery] bottle slope from low coefficient-of-friction plastic such as TEFLON(trademark) to maximize the effect of gravitational forces on bottles and minimize noise.
It is a principle object of the present invention to provide an index wheel, tangential exit guide, and helix track manufactured from low co-efficient-of-friction plastic such as ultra high molecular weigh polyethylene to minimize friction and minimize noise.
It is a principle object of the present invention to provide a bottle orienting machine free of metal bottle contact parts to eliminate generation of metallic particles in operation.
It is a principle object of the present invention to provide a slope angle equal and opposite to the slope of the helix track exit end.
It is a principle object of the present invention to provide an agitating force to bottles at the lower end of the slippery slope as imparted by the rotary motion of the abutting multi-pocketed index wheel.
According to these and other objects of the present invention, there is provided a method and apparatus for orienting bottles from a supply of bottles in a storage tray into a single file row of bottles.
The method comprises manually depositing bottles onto a slippery sloped surface to be gravitationally fed and inserted into individual pockets at the upper edge of an abutting multi-pocketed tilted bottle index wheel, and sequentially exiting said tilted bottles at the lower edge of said index wheel, automatically collecting said bottles in a tilted single-file row of bottles and automatically reorienting the tilted axis of said bottles to a vertical axis within a helix track.